Kyle Busch to have Daniel Suarez's pit crew for the playoffs

The same crew Kyle Busch had at Richmond Saturday night won’t be his playoff crew. (Getty)

Kyle Busch will have a new pit crew for the final 10 races of the Cup Series season.

Busch, the No. 3 seed in NASCAR’s playoffs, will have the pit crew of teammate Daniel Suarez while Suarez will have Busch’s pit crew. Suarez, a rookie in 2017, is the only driver at four-team Joe Gibbs Racing to miss the playoffs.

“Well, when you’re in a performance‑based business, it comes down to performance,” Busch said. “For us and Joe Gibbs Racing, everybody on the whole organization kind of decided that it was a necessary change to give ourselves the best opportunity to go race for a championship. You got to come out here with all these guys. All these teams, as good as they are, you have to have all the bullets in the chamber.

“We felt like we were a little bit short there with the pit crew. We got metrics and things like that that kind of show they were a little bit off, not far, but just a little bit. When you need it most, you’re going to need to count on those guys. That could be the last stop at Homestead. Fastest pit crew wins hopefully.”

Late pit stops have been imperative since the introduction of NASCAR’s current playoff format that pits four drivers against each other heads up for the title in the final race of the season at Homestead-Miami Speedway.

In the three years of the format, the longest final green flag run of the race has been a whopping seven laps. Losing a spot or two on pit road with that few laps to go can be the difference in a championship.